April 3, 2005

• THE CLOWN GOES NOSTALGIC
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Some guestbook comments I made about my life, edited for this blog, not through arrogence but through possible interest to the rest of you.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  When I was getting published all over the world, I was also an union convener (Trade union man who writes the speeches and types out the minutes and so on). We all went away for three weeks, leaving the wife’s sister in charge. The house was fine when we got back, but one of my kids counted my unopened mail, Two hundred and fifty (something) letters!
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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  When I was a child, I was a bit wild, no one understood me, and I didn’t understand the world. I got along with a speech defect and the total lack of empathy by humour. A Lot of comedians do this to stop them getting bullied. I was too tough to be bullied but didn’t want to bully. (Did once or twice, to my regret.)
  

  
  

  Anyway, my clowning was legend, and at a very early age I was called The Clown From Clowne. For example after seeing in a cowboy film a man throw his whiskey bottle into the fireplace. So I put my feet on my desk, got my milk bottle (we used to get free milk, one third of a pint) and chucked it into the school fire (lit!) and cried “Another one bar-tender!” I was seven years old.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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  I could be inventively naughty. There was once a craze for “cow-counters” little discs with cows on with a dial from one to eight. It was how many pints of milk the house wanted that morning. Well, the houses all went straight onto the pavement with just a front step and the cow-counters. Every morning for ages I stopped to do up my shoe-lace and changed just one of the counters, ie from 1 pint to 4 pints, (nothing silly so the milkman will knock on the door.), sometimes I even went back to re-change the dials just to blame the milkman (who was a nasty bit of work).
  

  
  

  Just one house a day, so it was ages before I was caught! But caught I was. I was sent to a psychiatrist who said I had an iq above Mensa, and wrote to my school, who seemingly didn’t believe him as I was still treat as a fool. But of course I was a fool.
  

  
  

  I was about eight years old.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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  I wrote my first poem (LINK) when I was twelve. I guess I had written poems before, but it is the first I remember (because it was published and my mother kept a copy of the magazine.) it was when I was living in Cyprus. It was about a weird cat my father was given by a policeman returning to England. the cat was even more psycho than I was!
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  I wrote a comic poem (lost.) about a camel who I fed and who bit everyone who went into his field except the owner and I. Every now and then another boy thought he’ll copy me, he was then bit. I didn’t realise the owner knew what I was doing but as I was kind to his camel, feeding it, stroking it’s neck, he didn’t mind. Called me “St. Frances” especially when my psyco cat was following me everywhere.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  One boy got bit by the camel so he came back to hit me and he was attacked by my cat. I couldn’t stop laughing!
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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  One of my many cousins was three-years old when I was aged 13. Both our families was staying at my grandmother’s large house in Barry, South Wales, and Victoria hooked on me. I took her everywhere, or more likely she followed me everywhere. Never one for friends I didn’t mind.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Ten years later Victoria still remembered some of what we did together, like finding a book of coupons someone had dropped, coupons that gave free rides to the fair. We spent most of them on the dodgems, we must have been in one together for hours smashing everything in sight. In those days you were ALLOWED to bump into other cars, try that today and a fair-ground yob jumps on your car and threatens you!
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  I remember such incidents because most of my childhood was boring and I was living in a hell I did not understand.

  
  

   

  
  

  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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  I collected train numbers for a while from the age of 13 when I returned from Cyprus to the age of 15. I was a fanatic for the numbers, I could remember every steam engine I had seen, their names and who built them. Something like “8P6F A4 4-6-2 1935 Sir Nigel Gresley’s streamlined. Seen 60002, Sir Murrough Wilson, 60004, William Whitelaw, 60005, Sir Charles Newton…”
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  I suppose I was a bit insane, but I never hurt anyone, never stole amything, never hit anyone weaker than myself, never a female, and always carried out the old lady next door dustbins without being asked, something not easy for me.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Never stole anything? well, one day to impress a girl I stole from a shop, after five days of torment I took it back and said sorry to everyone. No one sent me back, only my heart.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  I got the girl but didn’t want her.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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  It might surprise the bullish Christian fundamentalists of America, but I was once highly religious, even after being buggered by a teacher-priest; some of you know the event that later turned me away, but the Church had it coming a long time before then. Quite apart from the abuser-priests, there were sadistic nuns and a church that just did not care for it’s poor. But there were exceptions. The Reverend Toby is a tribune to the parish priest in Matlock, who had a heart of gold, and who made me keep my faith long after it should have gone the way of the dodo.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  He was what arrogent people would call “a simple man”, his wife was killed in the war along with his child. Even 17-23 years later he still spoke about them to me as if it was only the day before.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Never much of a talker, I became a great listener, which of course has now got it’s desserts in my poetry. The Reverend B. (never sure of his first name, but it wasn’t John as it said on the board). was a kind man, he never abused anyone, never laid his hands on anyone in anger. A cuddle from him was an innocent affair, children learn to know such things. And the old age pensioners loved him as a God.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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  Time for one more.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  On-line friendships are like pen-pals of old. Or the people you meet on holiday who invite you round to their house. Happened to my former boss and his wife. A lovely couple, lived in the next county. My boss and his misses, prim strongly religious (Jewish) and formal went round there, things started off ok, but soon the other couple put on a filthy video, a real all-the-way one. My boss’s wife had never felt so ill!
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

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  The Clowne From Clown.
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

  Comment Profile picture: Terry and Patrick.
  

  
  

  Three_Headed_Sarahs A poem by Sophie and news of the Sarahs’ farewell party.

  
  

  LordPineapple With Tiffy’s poems.
  

  
  

  
  

  Link to my NEW book http://www.cafepress.com/assortedfruits

  
  Profile pic on master page “Terry Scruffbert”

  • 8:22 pm
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